This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text.
Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book
(without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.
1896. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII Homewards With Cattle Again "we are
in mid-ocean, more than a thousand miles from either shore, our
bows bearing Britainwards and homewards. All around is the
wide-stretching, lonely, tossing ocean. Then the wind veers round
to the west, and there floats with us THE ODOUR OF THE FARMYARD.
The lowing of oxen is in our ears. Well-fed, sleek bulls and
bullocks and heifers munching their liberal rations all day long.
On the promenade deck shuffle-board goes forward. In the
smokingroom cribbage perhaps. In the saloon the piano is tinkling.
Generous meals are being served with regularity and attractiveness,
as on all other liners on the Atlantic. I might show you some of
the other sides of life on this floating town--might take you to
the hospital and let you hear the story of the stoker's risks from
one recovering from scalds, or walk the deck with the officers and
talk of ice and fog, or chat with the sailors, painting the boats,
about their hard life--but we will confine our attention to the
cattle and the cattle-men. HOMEWARDS WITH CATTLE 193 Five hundred
and thirty head of cattle on board, representing more than 10,000
in value. Splendid beasts they seem to the unprofessional eye. They
weigh, on an average, one thousand eight hundred pounds, and one
huge bull is said to be two thousand seven hundred and odd pounds.
They come by rail from farms in Ontario, where they have been
stall-fed since December last. Their voyage expenses, first and
last, are about 5 each. Durhams and Herefords crossed, and a strain
of Ontario blended in, enormous flat backs and massive haunches.
There they stand, fastened side by side, with a stout rope around
their horns, some on the deck (the upper deck, but covered in), and
also on the main deck below. On...